Minister Cullen gets blamed by world's sexiest panel

TV View: A squib of the dampish kind? Perhaps, although Eddie O'Sullivan was upbeat, putting the win in a positive context. "Make no mistake about it," he said, "we're very pleased to beat an Italian team that on their day are capable of beating any side in the world. Except for maybe the teams from the Southern Hemisphere. Or the teams from the Northern Hemisphere."

Okay, they were the post-match thoughts of Risteard Cooper, whose impression of Eddie O'Sullivan sounded more like Eddie O'Sullivan than Eddie O'Sullivan himself, if you know what we mean.

The game, though, proved to be a touch more competitive than, say, Brian Moore had us anticipating in his pre-match thoughts over on the BBC.

"Can you build a case for Italy?" Eddie Butler had asked him.

"No," said Moore. And that's as far as his analysis of the visitors went. Succinct, is that the word?

Butler tried again to get some positive thoughts from Moore on the Italians. "They have a new coach, Pierre Berbizier, he's had a good start, they won away in Argentina," he said.

"Well," said Moore, "if Berbizier has an influence they'll probably just cheat." Lovely.

Back on RTÉ, O'Sullivan's favourite pundit, George Hook, was conceding that the coach had almost got it right with his team selection ("he's been dragged kicking and screaming to the right team"), but was still concerned that Italy's approach to the run-about might just take its toll, in a gridlock kind of way.

"Their game plan will be borrowed from Minister Martin Cullen's approach to the M50, it will be to cram the most amount of people into the smallest amount of space," he said, suggesting that it could take Brian O'Driscoll two-and-a-half hours to cover 100 yards.

Speaking of O'Driscoll. Saturday was quite a solemn day for the fella. He handed over his "Ireland's Sexiest Man" title to Craig "Iarnród Éireann" Doyle on the BBC. This left John Inverdale incredulous.

"Makes you think," he said, bemused, "Craig Doyle, Ireland's sexiest man?"

"Yeah, but - who was second?" asked Jeremy Guscott. "Shane MacGowan?"

"Was Peter Clohessy third?" asked Jonathan Davies.

"Not a lot of competition," said Guscott.

They've obviously never seen the RTÉ rugby panel. Colin Farrell lookalike George was forecasting a 20-point victory for Ireland, a prediction that had Brad Pitt-double Tom McGurk purring. George Clooney (aka Brent Pope) was similarly upbeat, as was the man recently voted the world's 92nd sexiest man, David Cameron (Conor O'Shea).

Full-time? Well, a win's a win's a win. George concluded that Ireland couldn't decide if they were Munster, Leinster or Ireland, and half intimated it was all Martin Cullen's fault. Electronic voting, the M50 and now a sluggish Six Nations performance? You have to wonder how long the fella can survive in office.

Eddie/Risteard was quite content, though. "We knew what they were going to do with the football, we knew what we were going to do when they didn't have the football, we knew what we were going to do when we had the football, we knew what we were going to do when we didn't have the football, and when neither of us had the football we knew where the football was."

So, France next. "I think Scotland might be the surprise package - to the extent that I think they might beat France tomorrow," Butler said to Moore on Saturday. Moore dissolved in to laughter. The old ones are the best. Sunday: Scotland 20, France 16. Funny old game, alright.

The other footballing code hadn't Rafa Benitez laughing, though, yesterday. Losing 2-0 at Stamford Bridge, to fall 21 points behind Chelsea, did, it has to be said, put a bit of a dent in Liverpool's title aspirations, but Rafa was more irked by Arjen Robben tumbling like a sack of golden wonders when his goalkeeper Jose Reina made a teency bit of contact.

"Now maybe we need to go quickly because I must go to the hospital to see Robben," he said to the Sky Sports man after the game. "Unbeleebable," he added, shaking his head.

Back in the studio, Jamie Redknapp wasn't impressed either, but he was even less impressed with Chelsea's pitch, which looks like it has golden wonders growing in it. The suspicion was they were leaving it in this furrowed state for the visit of Barcelona in the Champions League.

"Yeah, but the pitch won't suit either team," said Redknapp. "I hope it won't come back to bite Chelsea in the bum." Indeed.